Fortunately, Jessica at Shower of Roses has done pretty much all the prep work for you, complete with a printable banner and food labels, and resource-inspired menu (see the Cupcakes of Catan above). All that’s left to add is a night of gaming fun!

Do you host themed gaming nights at your homestead? What fun elements wow’d your guests? Share your party prowess with the geek-crafting community below!

Isn’t this pinata stunning? It’s almost like Sauron is right in the room <shudder>. It literally made my jaw drop when I saw it, so I knew I had to share it here.

When Melody at Blossomingjoy.com hosted a Lord of the Rings themed party for her son, she pulled out all the stops. Party-goers attended in costume, there was a mega-brownie Mount Doom, the jaw-dropping Eye of Sauron pinata, handmade party favors, rice krispie lembas bread, and a Hobbit version of a Toastmasters 60-second speech exercise. Whew! What a party! And lucky for us, she wrote up all sorts of great details and how-to’s in her blog post.

Have you been to any geek-themed parties? What’s your favorite theme, or one you want to host in the near future? Sound off in the comments below!

Got a party occasion coming up, and looking for a geeky party favor or decorations? Lisa Kay Tate of Minion Feeding 101, and contributor to Geek Mom, has ya covered!

She offers a geek-tastic round-up of five ways you can put your crafting superpowers to use, spanning a variety of fandoms. Using plain cupcake or bonbon boxes you can find in the baking section of most major craft stores, she gave them each a makeover to depict the Tesseract Infinity Stone, Shakri cubes (which she calls Countdown Cubes) from Doctor Who, Minecraft Creepers, Rubik’s Cubes, and Portal Companion Cubes. Her post includes printables downloads and links to templates, so be sure to check it out!

How have you used your crafting superpowers to create geeky party favors or decorations? Please share with a comment below!

In the coolest-mom-ever category, I present to you Marita of Stuff with Thing. For her daughter’s 9th birthday, she threw a Blanket Fort Birthday Party. In addition to party activity stations, party-goers got to assist in the creation of a massive blanket fort, complete with disco ball! It sounds like they rented out a hall for the party, allowing plenty of room for fort expansion, plus an impromptu track for cardboard box race cars!

How’s this for low-cost birthday party planning – provide tables, chairs, cardboard boxes and blankets that you probably already have and let the kids go at it. Kudos to Marita for encouraging kids to pool their brain power in a creative way that also acted as an activity for the party.

Additional hat tip to the Minecraft references at the beverage table and birthday girl attire.

My eldest boy recently had a Star Wars birthday party. I was inspired by this pin, to sew some little cloaks for some lollipops, to make Jawa favors. I took notes and photos as I went, so I figured I may as well share the tutorial on my blog.

Of course, if you aren’t sewing inclined, but can’t do without these, the original pin I was inspired by points to a store, so you can buy some too!

Handmade piranha plants? Stompable balloon Goombas? A DIY chain chomp piñata? Homemade mushroom cupcakes? This has got to be the best Super Mario-themed birthday party ever! I hope this kid appreciated it—it was only his fourth birthday. I’d be pretty psyched if someone threw me a party that awesome now, and I’m 31.